Thursday, May 9, 2013

Let me give you the dearest gift that I can

Let me give you the dearest gift that I can
Do not refuse me, for my story began 
With passion at heart, guilt down at the gut
And sentences that I weave, then turn and cut
Now I give it to you, and this is my plea
Hold my book in your hand, it is for thee!


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Tuesday, May 7, 2013

A Peek Between the Covers

I aim to make my books a work of art, inside and out. My artistic covers have won several contests. And when you open them, you can see how carefully I have considered every detail inside. This includes the choice of font, the size of different fields of text, the white space around blocks of text, the indentation of the first paragraph in the story as compared to the indentation of following paragraphs--all of which create a balance; a black-and white environment for you to sail away into the story.

In the case of my novel, Apart from Love, I have focused on several design details. For example, the first letter of each chapter in the book is unique, in the traditional manner of illuminated manuscripts. This special attention to the first letter signifies a beginning of a new thought, and an invitation to the reader to pause before delving in.

I chose a fancy font for the first letter, called Kokonor. Furthermore, I placed it carefully, like a piece of art, in relation to the following letters. This can not be done simply by typing the letters and selecting different fonts--but rather by adding a 'text box' and carefully placing it on the page, letting the text rearrange itself around it. 

 Here, in Anita's voice, is the text for the opening of the chapter shown above:
"Since the bleeding began, I’ve been missing my ma more and more. If she was here I could ask her, like, How come I feel so alone. How come I can see, all of a sudden I can now see how my youth is wasting away in this place. Like, I have no air, I’m wilting here. And Lenny, he don’t even pay no attention, ‘cause he’s back to his usual thing, which is: comb his thinning, gray hair—sleek it back, real slow and careful—and then work all day, write all night, either out or away. 
   Me, I thought getting married was meant to change things—but then, if things are changing it’s not for the better." 

★ Love reading? Treat yourself to a family drama ★


 "A feast for the armchair psychologist. 
Reveals insights that can touch and frighten each of us"
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Behind the Scenes: Never a Dull Moment!

This time, I will open in a round-about way. Do you like an 'open-ended' story? I mean, a story with an end that ties most threads in the yarn but not all, so the story lingers in your mind--so you have to keep looking at it, this way and that, trying to imagine what else happened? By being intrigued, you become the writer of the future events of the story. 

 Two of the chapters in Apart From Love are open-ended, and I am not going to tell you which ones--you will have to read the novel, and find out for yourself! What I am going to tell you is the trouble I found myself in, because of these open-ended ends--first, with both of my narrators, and then with ACX, the place where the audiobook is undergoing an intense process of Quality Analysis before it is offered for sale to you.

 Most audiobooks are carried along by the voice of a single narrator. Apart from Love is unusual because we have a dual-narration project: he said, she said. For her part, Heather Jane Hogan(who plays Anita) sent me three version of the last sentence, so I may choose the best variation of an unfinished end. And David Kudler (who plays Ben) did a couple of variations on the last sentence in another chapter, before I approved the entire project. In hindsight I have a better way of suggesting to them how to perform this feat: first, extend that last sentence, write something outrageous, horrible, funny beyond the last letter, and then stop just short of it--

Yesterday--taking a short break from chatting with you, and running the launch event--I sent a note to ACX. I was becoming worried that their approval process is taking too long, and started asking myself, Will I have to extend the launch event beyond Mother's Day? Will I have to stop and restart it later? I would hate to do anything like that... So here is what I said:

"I approved the audiobook production of Apart From Love on April 12, 2013, and received a note from you  saying, 'Barring any issues in the quality check, that process should take around 2-3 weeks'. It is over 3 weeks now, and I am eager to let listeners know the audiobook is out. I am at the end of a great launch event for it, I do not want to lose their interest if it takes longer. Please let me know the status of Apart From Love." 
The reply came in later that day:

"Chapter 17 has a truncated audio issue (file cuts off before audio track is finished)"

I replied, as did David from his end, that the end of this chapter is cut off by design, so as to let the reader imagine what happened. In response, they qualified their instruction, which--I hate to admit it--did make a lot of sense:

"Since the 'cutoff' is intentional there still needs to be a certain amount of room tone (spacing between the end of the narration and end of the file). It sounds too abrupt as is.... after being reviewed the files get sent to our encoding team, during this process they examine the files (the book was initially rejected due to the abrupt end of chapter 17)"

With that, came a list of instructions to please revise the audio files, recompile the entire fixed audiobook into a single zip file, with specific naming instruction; upload the zip file to their online dropbox; let them know it is ready for them, and wait for them to review the new submission, which they would do as soon as possible. This opens up so many possibilities for error, that I am biting my nails with each passing moment. Will we succeed in fixing & recompiling the files? Will these files be sent, or by mistake--the old ones? Will we do it on time for the launch event to remain on schedule?

What happened next? At this point, this real-time story is open-ended, too--
Stay tuned
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Sunday, May 5, 2013

Never Listened to Audiobooks Before? It's Easier than You Think!

I love the idea of listening to a story. But being new to the technology I can understand the hesitation many of you may feel. If you have never listened to audiobooks before, perhaps you find yourself wondering, hmmm... What device do I need? As it turns out, you already have it:
Even simpler: Audible, the Amazon company specializing in audiobooks, will gladly help you--24 hours a day, 7 days a week--to download the audiobook to your preferred device. It is quick and painless... Here is their help line: 1-888-283-5051 (US & Canada) or 1-973-820-0400 (international.)

If you spend a lot of time driving on long trips, or even sitting around the fireplace, you can imagine what a great companion audiobooks can be to spin away the hours. Great narrators make books come alive. Being so close to you, breathing words into your ear, they make the experience both intimate and heightened, with every nuance in the story becoming fully expressed.

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Saturday, May 4, 2013

Gone Viral

I thought I knew what I was doing: Usually, an image of one of my sculptures, combined with a thought around the same theme, or about the process of my writing, calls the attention of readers. But yesterday morning, a simple post has gone viral, and I am still trying to figure this one out... This is what I posted on Facebook:

 "Brian M. Hayden, a dear friend of mine and a great author, offered me the opportunity of writing a guest post for his blog. This time I chose to write about The Cyclical Process of Writing. Check it out..."

 Then I gave the link, and here it is: Guest Post by Uvi


 As you can see when you go there, this little post garnered 196 'likes' on Brian's blog (let alone all the likes and shares it got all over Facebook, which I cannot even count, but for which I am so grateful.) Brian tells me it was the highest visited post. Over 1,100 visits in a single day!

 Funny thing is, I wish I knew what magic dust was used here, because then I could repeat this feat with my next post... My best guess is this: here is a case of two authors combining forces, one opening the door for another, creating an inviting environment--and therefore, the friends and followers of both of them come in too, and they do it in great numbers!

 Still, who knows... Your guess is as good as mine!
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Thursday, May 2, 2013

Missing Her When She's Gone

"A week drags by—seven sleepless nights—during which I find myself missing my ma so much that it hurts, because now that the little one is finally here, I don’t even get how she did it, like, how she managed to take care of me all these years, all on her own. No wonder she ended up being grumpy, which is one thing I’d rather forget." 

I so enjoy writing a character with an accent! It is such a delightful challenge! Anita Southern twang, her way of speaking and even thinking, marks a boundary between her and the people around her. She is a stranger in a strange land, if you will. 

Being resourceful, Anita is strong enough to survive all odds, but somehow, becoming a mother makes her realize how much she misses her mother. Here is my Mother and Child piece, which you may have seen from a different angle in an earlier post, A Mother's Lullaby.
★ Love reading? Treat yourself to a family saga ★

"The author did an amazing job of telling a complex story of love, deception, anger, passion"
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Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Coming to a Peak

I am so glad to share this behind-the-scenes information with you! 
It shows how many people visit pages on this blog, month by month, 
since its inception. 


During the month of April, the graph came to a peak:
There have been 12,628 page views. 
This graph, and statistics about individual posts, 
are great tools for tracking what attracts your attention.


As you can see from the intensity of green on this map, 
my blog has achieved a global reach, 
particularly in English speaking countries 
but also in other countries.
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